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The Current Transcript for June 12, 2023

Host: Matt Galloway

STORIES FROM THIS EPISODE

Prologue

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

RYLIE GREGOIRE: Basketball keeps my mind off of everything. If I'm stressed, I'll go hoop. If I'm mad, I'll go hoop. If I'm sad, I’ll go hoop. You know, there's a lot of things that basketball actually helps me out with.

MATT GALLOWAY: Sports can mean many things to many people. In the Labrador community of Sheshatshiu, the arrival of their first basketball team changed the relationship with school for some of the students there. Lessons learned on the court in just a moment. For Nick Taylor, the pinnacle of his sports career came yesterday when he became the first Canadian man in almost 70 years to win golf's Canadian Open. The dramatic finish at the end of a tumultuous week for pro golf coming up. Also this morning, they came to Canada for an education. Now, some 700 international students from India have been told they could be deported after it turned out the offer to study here was fake. In 30 minutes, what might happen next and what advocates say international students need when it comes to better protection from those who would take advantage of them in India and here in Canada. And later, the smoke from the wildfires hanging over many parts of this country has stressed you out. Perhaps you thought a glass of wine might help distract you from the situation at hand. Not so much.

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ERIC ASIMOV: Smoke can imbue the grapes or at least the skin. And the skins are crucial to making red wine.

MG: In an hour, the impact of a changing climate on the wine industry in Canada and abroad. We begin, though, in Labrador where basketball became more than just a game in one Innu community. Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and this is The Current.

[Music: Theme]

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THE JOY OF BASKETBALL

SOUNDCLIP

[crowd cheering]

RYLIE GREGOIRE: It's the most cheering I've ever heard from me getting a bucket. Like when I laid it up, I could just hear the whole gym just go, like just start screaming.

MG: That's Rylie Gregoire. He's number seven on his school's basketball team, Sheshatshiu Eagles. Sheshatshiu is an Innu community about 40 minutes from the biggest town in central Labrador. And what you're hearing is just a scrimmage at his school, but it is an exciting one. Rylie's team is his community's first ever basketball team.

SOUNDCLIP

[more cheering]

MG: The sport is so new in the community some people hadn't seen a game before.

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PHOENIX POKUE-BENEUN: It feels so magnificent. It feels like the biggest thing in the world.

MG: Phoenix Pokue-Beneun is number 24. He is the youngest starter on the team, a shooting guard.

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PHOENIX POKUE-BENEUN: My confidence is going up. If I keep in those shots, it's just going to go higher and higher and higher.

MG: CBC Labradors John Gaudi has been following the boys during their first ever basketball season. He's been getting to know Rylie and Phoenix and other players on the team. And he discovered that sometimes, a game can move us in surprising ways off the court. This is John Gaudi's documentary, The Joy of Basketball.

SOUNDCLIP

[knock on door]

PHOENIX POKUE-BENEUN: Hello. Good morning. We're just getting everything. Like we're just clearing up the whole house right now, so from the beds and stuff.

JOHN GAUDI: These days, Phoenix Pokue-Beneun is an early riser. He's 14. And this morning on my visit, he's getting ready for class. He's got basketball practice after school, so he can't miss the day.

PHOENIX POKUE-BENEUN: Since it's a big family, I'm going to have to sleep in the living room, I guess. Yeah. And my mother.

KIMBERLY: Hello.

JOHN GAUDI: Phoenix lives in a busy house. He and his family have been staying in this place since December. Last year, their house flooded. And so now, like many people in Sheshatshiu, they're waiting for renovations to be completed.

KIMBERLY: We take turns with the laundry room because there's like three families living in here.

JOHN GAUDI: The rented duplex is his Aunt Marie's. Sometimes, there are 15 people staying here.

KIMBERLY: It's crazy in the mornings when all three babies start crying. [laughing]

JOHN GAUDI: Kimberly is Phoenix's mom.

KIMBERLY: Where we used to stay at my mom’s, there was only one bathroom and probably 20 of us living in the house.

PHOENIX POKUE-BENEUN: I know the struggles of one bathroom. I struggled too much. I earned this two bathrooms now.

JOHN GAUDI: One of the good things about living with so many people, there's lots of help making sure Phoenix gets to school on time.

KIMBERLY: Marie has a vehicle to drop off the kids to school every day.

PHOENIX POKUE-BENEUN: My uncle's girlfriend and her car too. So we have two vehicles at the moment right now, which is pretty good. Just in case one of them goes, we have the other one.

JOHN GAUDI: This morning, Phoenix is leaving on time.

PHOENIX POKUE-BENEUN: Grab my jacket.

JOHN GAUDI: But it wasn't always like that.

PHOENIX POKUE-BENEUN: You always got to get your shoes in there and my notebook of all the basketball things I wrote down. We got to head to school right now. Have a good day and this is Phoenix Pokue-Beneun signing out for you.

[car door closing, driving off]

[basketball sounds]

JOHN GAUDI: The Sheshatshiu Eagles basketball team started just a few months ago. At this practice, they're getting ready for their first real games, the regionals, nearly four hours away from here, in Churchill Falls.

[basketball sound fades up]

JOHN GAUDI: Nathan Mine Goldring teaches grade eight. He's the coach.

NATHAN MINE GOLDRING: If I'm posing like this with the ball to my right, you go behind me and grab it. Okay? And then you have two options. Take a jumper or layup. Okay?

JOHN GAUDI: Nathan saw the boys shooting hoops in the gym during their free time. He could see how much they loved it. So he had an idea. What if they started a team? A real one? The boys were into it.

[basketball sound fades up]

JOHN GAUDI: Most of them were already huge fans of the sport with their favourite NBA players, Curry, Shaq, LeBron, but they never imagined themselves on a team.

NATHAN MINE GOLDRING: Jumper, gets the Rebound back on the line. Makes sense? Okay, now that we've done that, we could do it a little faster, right?

JOHN GAUDI: There are 10 players on the roster. The youngest is 14, the oldest 17. For starters, besides Phoenix, they have the co-captains, Ty Penashue and Shipek Andrew. There is Mason Gabriel who plays centre, and Rylie Gregoire is a power forward on the team. He's 16, six foot two and a real charmer.

RYLIE GREGOIRE: Sounds monumental, you know, for me and my friends as a friend group to be a part of the Sheshatshiu Eagles basketball team. Labrador isn't really a basketball area. And for Sheshatshiu to have their own basketball team, I think that's pretty crazy. 10 years ago, I never would have expected them to have a basketball team here.

JOHN GAUDI: When basketball started, there was a problem. Some kids who wanted to play missed a lot of class. Some kids would miss mornings, then slink into school in the afternoon just so they could play basketball after school. It didn't sit well with teachers. Phoenix used to miss a lot of school. He stayed home lots of days to play video games. It drove his mom Kimberly really crazy.

KIMBERLY: There was a few times that I almost took off the wifi for him to sleep so he could get up in the morning and go to school. He was always tired in the mornings when I told him to go to school because he didn't want to get off on the game. There were times that I told them that you guys are going to move back. You're going to move to my mother's if you don't go to school, you know, you're not going to live here with me and I'm not going to buy you guys games, I’m not going to pay Internet if you don't start going to school. That's the point that I got.

JOHN GAUDI: Rylie missed a lot of school too. His parents split up last year and that hit him hard.

RYLIE GREGOIRE: Last year, it was kind of rough for me. I had to deal with the separation of my parents. You know, like I've seen them together all my life for 15 years. And, you know, to see them separate after that was kind of rough. I basically involved smoking weed into my life a lot more than I used to, and I find I would just get high to avoid my problems. And yeah, I was sad a lot of the time. I was depressed and I didn't have anything to look forward to.

JIMMY NUNA: My name is Jimmy Nuna and I'm Rylie Gregoire’s dad. Born and raised in Sheshatshiu. Last year, he was really, really upset. And I was down the house and, you know, his mom called and said, can you come down and can you, you know, stay with him? I'm worried about him. I said, okay. And then I would, you know, go down to the house and he would, you know, he was really upset, calling me names, but I just, you know, kept my cool, didn't react to him. And I said, let's go play basketball. Let's go play basketball. He's like, okay, let's go. Let's go shoot, shoot some hoops. And then we went over to North Chester where they’ve got like an outdoor basketball court there. And then we shot some hoops and it was like a switch, like a switch went off, like for those like night and day, the way he was where he was so upset. And then after we played basketball, it was like, you know, you would never knew that he was so upset.

JOHN GAUDI: Jimmy saw how much basketball helped Riley. So now that he's on an actual team, he's relieved.

JIMMY NUNA: I know that he's been smoking weed. And, you know, I'm always trying to encourage him, you know, to do stuff, you know, and just to get out of the house and be active because, you know, that's a big part of someone's, I guess, mental health, is being active. A lot of stuff going on in Sheshatshiu. You know, there's like a lot of drug abuse, alcohol abuse and suicides and, you know, it just is hard on your mental health.

[basketball sound]

JOHN GAUDI: Since some kids were missing school, teachers decided to make a rule. No class, no basketball practice. Nathan the coach thought of it as a game strategy.

NATHAN MINE GOLDRING: I've certainly used basketball as a bargaining tool to get them to come to school. And I've had to make some difficult decisions about like taking basketball practice off the table if they didn't attend.

JOHN GAUDI: And guess what? The new rule change things.

NATHAN MINE GOLDRING: Yeah, I've been surprised by many things. The dedication, the focus, their commitment, their passion. If I could trick them into being passionate about school and classes too, that's fine.

NATHAN MINE GOLDRING: When you guys work really hard like this, you get noticed. And I'm sure like you guys are getting nods from like your family, community members, friends, other people like students, teachers, right?

NATHAN MINE GOLDRING: I think the community is trying to show interest too because I get stopped in the hallway from custodial staff or other teachers asking about when is the game. I'm starting to see grade six, seven kids coming up to me in the hallway and talk to me about basketball, and that excites me to see them looking forward to it when they're these guys age.

[basketball sound, players talking]

JOHN GAUDI: And when the time finally came for the Eagles first game, the community did show interest even though it was hours away at Eric G. Lambert School in Churchill Falls. And even though it was an ice cold day in February, fans made the trip. One of them was Kanani Davis, whose recording of the game we're hearing right now on her phone.

[Kanani running commentary]

JOHN GAUDI: Kanani is the head of the Innu school board and had never seen a basketball game before.

KANANI DAVIS: Oh my God. I could not wait to see them. It was so exciting. I was so excited just to see like their faces, their expressions when we're getting ready to, you know, get out on the court. Like I have jitters even in thinking about it, like how exciting it was to watch it and how exciting to see the boys really pumped to get out on the court. Like it was, I don't know, I'm just so happy for them.

[basketball sound, crowd cheering]

JOHN GAUDI: In the first quarter of the first game, Phoenix sank his team's first basket ever.

PHOENIX POKUE-BENEUN: I just reverse laid that up and damn, I really made history. It was crazy.

KANANI DAVIS: And he finished that first quarter and I went over to him and I said, you made history. I said, you got the first goal now. I mean, basket. I'm just used to goal. Yeah. But anyway, so he was like, really? And I said, yeah. And I said, and I got it on Facebook Live. And you could just see the smile on his face.

JOHN GAUDI: Rylie's dad, Jimmy, was also there cheering on his son.

RYLIE GREGOIRE: Every time I walk down the court with my ball, I would hear, oh, Rylie, get a bucket. You know, after I got each bucket, my dad was always the person I look up to. I look at my team, celebrate a little, and then I look up at my dad and celebrate again.

[basketball sound fades up]

JOHN GAUDI: The team lost their first two games, but won their third one.

KANANI DAVIS: 26 seconds. Score is 50-27 for Sheshatshiu. Let's go, boys. Let's go. 20 seconds. Come on.

[crowd counting down and screaming]

JOHN GAUDI: So they placed second in the tournament. Kanani watched on as they got their medals.

KANANI DAVIS: And when I saw these boys get a medal, you know, a second place medal, they weren't upset. They were happy to get a second place. They were happy to get a medal. First medal went to Ty and Ty grabbed his coach and gave him a big hug. And it just made me so emotional because it's so real. It's so powerful. An athlete, a student and a teacher just bonding. Just powerful.

[crowd applauding]

JOHN GAUDI: And there was another award given out, most sportsmanlike, and that one went to Rylie.

KANANI DAVIS: Seeing those boys play hard and coming together as a team gave me so much hope.

[crowd applauding]

PHOENIX POKUE-BENEUN: One, two, three, four, five, six.

JOHN GAUDI: That tournament gave the boys a big boost.

PHOENIX POKUE-BENEUN: Nine, 10, 11, 12.

JOHN GAUDI: When I meet Phoenix at home, he's not only up early. He's working out.

PHOENIX POKUE-BENEUN: After that, I just go into a diamond push-Up where you just put your fingers close together. I just do five of these because, oh God, it's really hard to talk while you're working out, so yeah.

JOHN GAUDI: Why do you love basketball so much?

PHOENIX POKUE-BENEUN: I don't really know, man. Like I played volleyball and I played, I believe, badminton a little. But none of them just gave me the joy of basketball does. Like the way it just goes into the rim and just the way it goes into the hoop like with a swish, that just sounds good to me. It's just music to my ears to me. And the way the ball bounces and you can hear it and the way you can hear like your feet when you have your shoes on like screeching, all those sounds and all those like things, I just love every second of it. Like to me, when I train and I do really good on my drills, it just makes me feel very accomplished and just satisfying. I just love every second of it. It's a little too much, but yeah.

JOHN GAUDI: Rylie's made some big changes too. He's even quit smoking weed.

RYLIE GREGOIRE: I know if I want to continue my basketball career and continue where I want to go, I need to quit and I need to stay away from that stuff. Basketball keeps my mind off of everything. Like I can go, if I'm stressed, I'll go hoop. If I'm mad, I'll go hoop. If I'm sad, I’ll go hoop. You know, there's a lot of things that basketball actually helps me out with, and that's why I love it so much because, you know, when I'm sad or I’m mad and frustrated, anything, I'll just turn to basketball and it's always there for me.

JERRY WILLIAMS: Ready? Go, go, go. Behind and go, go, go! Run, run, go! Perfect. Good job, guy. Hey, that's weird. Hey, listen. Stop, stop, stop. I promise you. I promise you. I'm not just saying this to say it. I have grown men that come to my training camp that mess this up.

JOHN GAUDI: The Eagles aren't just getting attention from people in Sheshatshiu. They were noticed by some others too a lot farther away.

JERRY WILLIAMS: All right, guys, listen. So this is called a three-man weave. It’s the most simplest drill in the world, but you can make it as hard a drill in the world, Trust me. Okay.

JOHN GAUDI: That's Newfoundland Rogues coach Jerry Williams.

JERRY WILLIAMS: Go behind the person that you pass the ball to.

JOHN GAUDI: The Rogues are the province's only professional basketball team. When Williams heard about the Eagles, he and three players flew to Sheshatshiu during a break to do drills with the boys.

JERRY WILLIAMS: So he's got to make a choice. He goes inside. He wants to go, right? So he goes to Tyrone. He's going behind Tyrone.

JERRY WILLIAMS: Like we're literally in Labrador right now with a basketball team that says a lot. And they don't know this. But for us, it's like guys, like they inspire us to keep pushing. You know, like the things that we're doing is reaching people in places that we never thought a basketball team would be. So they're inspiring us whether they know it or not.

JOHN GAUDI: After some drills, it's game time. There's a scrimmage between players, but there's a big surprise. The school packs the gym with fans. It is electric.

[crowd screaming]

PHOENIX POKUE-BENEUN: I feel like a professional. Like I like working with them. I just feel like I'm actually doing like an actual profession, like college. Like I feel like I'm actually doing college stuff or like actual real… Like I feel like I'm in the NBA sometimes. That makes me proud and makes me feel happy about my community, about my sport. So it's unbelievable.

NATHAN MINE GOLDRING: Seeing all the kids in the stands like chanting, you know, black team, white team, like, you know, Eagles and Rose and it's like it's beautiful thing. And I hate to sound so corny, but it really is beautiful. It's been an emotional journey.

JOHN GAUDI: Rylie's already got his eye on next year.

RYLIE GREGOIRE: My vision is to keep playing, to give up all unhealthy things in my life and to keep playing basketball The way I do. I got to keep my head in the books as well, got to keep shooting hoops to get better.

JOHN GAUDI: His dad Jimmy is proud of the boys.

JIMMY NUNA: I'm so thankful for Mr. Mine, the head coach. Like I don't know if he realizes, but I believe that, you know, he saved these boys’ lives, you know.

NATHAN MINE GOLDRING: It starts in this gym right here every day, coming here and put the work in, and one day you'll wake up. Why not be the first Labrador to be a professional basketball player? Somebody had to be the first one.

JOHN GAUDI: Kimberly, Phoenix's mother, says she likes being a basketball mom.

KIMBERLY: And I will be there for him to support and to cheer just like always, just like every other parent does. He found the joy of basketball.

PHOENIX POKUE-BENEUN: Yeah, I feel great. I actually, I made MVP this game. I brung this home. I brung this home. My name is Phoenix Pokue-Beneun and I'm the greatest shooter of all time.

MALE SPEAKERS: Good win on three. One, two, three, good win.

MG: The Joy of Basketball was produced by the CBC's John Gaudi. The CBC news is up next. And then.

SOUNDCLIP

MALE SPEAKER: We didn't do anything wrong. We didn't do any fraud over here. We are getting this punishment, we are getting this mental stress just because of someone else mistake. So that's the thing. Like that's why we are sitting there and we are looking for justice.

MG: They were sold a dream of a Canadian education. Now hundreds of Indian students are facing deportation from this country. How immigration scams both in India and in Canada are leaving students vulnerable and what needs to be done to better protect them? I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current on CBC Radio and the CBC Listen app. We'll be back with that story coming up in six minutes.

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INDIAN STUDENTS

Guests: Gurpreet Malhotra, Warda Shazadi Meighen

MG: Good morning. I'm Matt Galloway and you're listening to The Current.

[Music: Theme]

SOUNDCLIP

[protests]

MG: As many as 700 international students from India could be facing deportation over fake college admission letters. They say they've been scammed by immigration consultants in India, but a predatory industry built on these students is growing here in Canada as well, and calls to hold those responsible to account are also growing.

[Music: Theme]

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BALBIR SINGH: After graduation and after applying my work permit, later in 2021, I got a letter from CBSA, which says like you need like a 10, 15 minute interview with us. And in the interview, they told me like your offer letter was fake.

MG: That's Balbir Singh. He came to Canada from India to study. But when it came time to get his work permit after graduating, authorities told him his original admission's letter for school was a fake. And so now he's been facing a removal order for over a year. And fighting to stay in this country has cost him thousands of dollars. He's not alone in this. Recently, 700 students were issued deportation orders for similar reasons. Federal Immigration Minister Shaun Fraser says his government is, in his words, actively pursuing a solution for these students. But advocates say the problems here extend well beyond the promise of an education. Gurpreet Malhotra is chief executive officer of Indus Community Services. His organization offers support to newcomers at a variety of locations in Brampton and Mississauga, Ontario. Gurpreet, good morning.

GURPREET MALHOTRA: Good morning, Matt.

MG: As you understand it, how did this happen that 700 people here for school are now facing deportation?

GURPREET MALHOTRA: Well, an unlicensed agent operating in Punjab, India, decided to falsify letters and then pass those letters on to the students in exchange for tuition, which then they apparently just stole and took off. So the students arrive here with a false document, attend the college that they thought they were accepted to, and kind of a lot of confusion, in some cases, the college saying we don't have space, you're not coming in in other cases. Sometimes, the college finds space and then the student has to repay an enormous tuition load and then start their process. So this is just actually one awful symptom of a very sick process.

MG: These students would hire that immigration consultant in India to help with the passage. And in some ways, it's help get into those schools, but also to help get over some of the hurdles that might be in place that they would face otherwise?

GURPREET MALHOTRA: Yes, it's quite daunting. You're looking at the documentation around immigration or at least leaving one country, going to another, settling in a new place, knowing which college might be able to provide a program that you'd have an interest in. And of course, it's all very cost sensitive. So then if someone's able to help navigate this and somehow perhaps maybe a little cheaper than another agent down the block, then they would become a popular choice. The problem is that as we've seen, at least 700 have been fraudulent.

MG: At least. Broadly speaking, who are these students? We've talked a little bit about where they're coming from, but what are their backgrounds?

GURPREET MALHOTRA: They generally are from Punjab or Haryana, northern India, where there's a significant Sikh and Hindu component to the young people. And they tend to be more rurally based. As you know from worldwide news, the farming situation in northern India has been quite fraught the last few years. So I imagine families are looking for a better option for their young people.

MG: We've talked on this program before about the private colleges where many of these students end up. How many of those sorts of institutions are there in this country that would cater to those students? And I mean, part of it is also what is in it for those institutions. Those students pay a lot in tuition, right?

GURPREET MALHOTRA: Yeah, 16,000 up plus all sorts of other costs. And never mind the basic necessities such as food and transportation. But for example, in Peel, we're looking at over 80 private colleges, and some of them have arrangements with our publicly assisted colleges. So there's a lot of players. For example, the publicly assisted colleges working with private colleges generate about 25,000 students here in Mississauga and Brampton.

MG: And the promises that would be made to those students for paying $16,000 in tuition, What will those promises be?

GURPREET MALHOTRA: It would be of an education hopefully to the same level as that domestic student who's paying $3600 would be getting. So they're paying a very heavy premium. And with the 80 private colleges that exist in Peel, many of them are subpar and have hit the news in a variety of ways, either for substandard education or for granting way more admissions in the physically have space for.

MG: I was going to say when the students graduate, if, you know, the process unfolds as it should and they graduate with some sort of diploma or degree, where does that leave them in terms of looking for work in this country?

GURPREET MALHOTRA: Well, in some cases, the accreditation, the diploma is so weak that we as an organization, as an agency, can't hire them. They don't have strong enough English. And then you have to ask yourself, how did you get through four semesters of schooling in English and not be able to handle a basic job interview for an entry level position? So we've seen firsthand that what's being produced is not going to be a wonderful contributor to the local economy. And that's another element of why this process is falling apart.

MG: What's the toll that all this takes on these students who have made enormous sacrifices to pay this huge ticket to get here, have left family and friends and community at home to come to another part of the world and then it goes sideways and they're taken advantage of? What is the toll that that takes on them?

GURPREET MALHOTRA: Enormous. Last year, it was between three and four a month. This year, it's up to five a month at a local funeral home.

MG: Sorry, but when you say between three and four a month…

GURPREET MALHOTRA: Young people dying by suicide. That's how heavy the toll is nationally on these young people. Now it's up to five a month are being sent home. The shattered hopes and dreams of the family plus the ongoing debt, it's just an absolute tragedy. And that happens because of the enormous pressure placed on these young people not only by the loans the parents had to take out to get them here, but also the need to work locally. So for the last year, you could only work 20 hours legitimately, for example, for a minimum wage at a normal employer who would respect employment standards acts. So therefore, they had to work another 20 or 30 hours under the table plus go to school full time. And working under the table meant they weren't protected by Employment Standards Act, as well as were being paid less than minimum wage. So what IRCC did and the federal government did do is conduct an experiment, if you will, a pilot that's running out this December, which allows all students to work up to 40 hours. And what we'd like to see is that be made permanent because what that did is they took all those young people out of the great employment market and into above the table work and made them more safe. It's still not an ideal situation, 40 hours worth of work and a full time academic schedule, but at least they’re getting a full minimum wage at least and able to work in a more safe environment.

MG: And in the meantime, just before I let you go, we are out of time, but what would you like to see? I mean, these agencies, the consultants are in India, so the reach of the federal government here is limited in terms of cracking down on that kind of behaviour there. But here, what would you like to see in terms of making sure that those students who come here, the prospective students are actually supported and not taken advantage of?

GURPREET MALHOTRA: Well, what's happening in our region is that we have so many colleges that are outside of this region transplanting warehouse learning, if you will, into the region so that they end up factory farming, if you will, international students locally. So that pressure point belongs at the provincial level. And that's the difficulty here is that every level needs to be able to cooperate with each other. And they're not because each feels that they can continue to make money off of this situation.

MG: Gurpreet, thank you very much for this.

GURPREET MALHOTRA: Thank you.

MG: Gurpreet Malhotra is the chief executive officer of Indus Community Services. Warda Shazadi Meighen is an immigration and refugee law partner with Landing's LLP, refugee law professor, adjunct professor at the University of Toronto. Warda, good morning to you.

WARDA SHAZADI MEIGHEN: Good morning, Matt.

MG: How common is what you just heard from Gurpreet?

WARDA SHAZADI MEIGHEN: It's quite common. We see this all the time in our practices.

MG: Tell me more about that. What do you see?

WARDA SHAZADI MEIGHEN: We see a lot of individuals who are from certain ethnic communities that don't speak English, that are very isolated, and that fall prey to immigration consultants both in terms of their initial paperwork in their home country, but also within Canada. And so they're often, you know, paying very exorbitant fees to go through a very simple process. And they don't know if their consultant is or agent is licensed or not licensed. And they're just listening to advice from different community members or people who are not authorized by the government to be providing that advice. And it has a huge toll on them mentally, psychologically and practically.

MG: And we just heard from Gurpreet how vulnerable these students are. I mean, they find themselves in a situation on the other side of the world with very little support. What are the legal avenues that would be available to them if they want to stay in this country, having found that the letter that brought them here was fraudulent?

WARDA SHAZADI MEIGHEN: It's very difficult. And that's the conundrum for many of these students. So what they would typically need to do is file a complaint with the regulatory body. So for lawyers, it's often the Law Society of the province. For consultants, it's the College of Immigration and Citizenship Canada. But the problem is that many of these individuals who are providing the service are not authorized to do so. And so there really isn't anyone to complain to. They don't sign a contract and they take the fees in cash. So really, it's starting police proceedings and going to make a police complaint on fraud. And, you know, that often embroils these students in a criminal process, a legal process that they don't have the capacity for and they're very scared. So the recourse available to them is quite limited once they do find out that their documents have been fabricated.

MG: And again, the consultants in India are one part of this story. But what do we know about the extent of the predatory practices here in Canada?

WARDA SHAZADI MEIGHEN: They're huge. They really run the gamut. Some of them are quite sophisticated and some of them are very basic.

MG: But it's incredibly lucrative, right? I mean, again, if you're looking at $16,000 plus per year for tuition, there's a lot of money at play here.

WARDA SHAZADI MEIGHEN: Yes, absolutely. And, you know, that's just tuition. And that's one type of a scam, but there's also a lot of other opportunity for individuals who are acting in an undesirable manner. So, for example, I've had clients that have used a consultant, Sunny Wang. He's part of the largest immigration scam in Canadian history. And the clients had no idea what he was doing and his agency was doing. And he's now been convicted, but these clients are paying the price in terms of misrepresentation allegations against them, and they are barred from the country. They're being deported. And meanwhile, you know, Sonny Wang has made over $10 million through two of his consultancies. So there's huge incentive to act in these ways.

MG: Where are these students left in terms of the work that they can get coming through the system?

WARDA SHAZADI MEIGHEN: So if they don't have, like your previous guest was saying, if they don't have basic English skills and they haven't gone through the filtering process that the Canadian government puts into place, it's very difficult for them to find much work at all. They end up working in security jobs, as Uber drivers on someone else's license, as domestic caregivers under the table. And so they're subject to a heightened form of vulnerability as a result. So the options are very few. And some of them, you know, try to go back. They just give up and they live on the margins of society. It's very, very sad. And, you know, others just refuse to go back because their families have often collectively sold a lot of land to send them here. The typical arrangement is, for example, in India, that the entire family, it's not just their immediate family, but it's also the extended family that will band together to come up with these fees. And that individual is supposed to send money back home, and that's kind of the quid pro quo there that individuals are bound to. And so if they can't actually get a job because the education they received was so subpar and their paperwork is not in order, they're in a very, very bad situation.

MG: So just in the last couple of minutes that we have, what do you think this story is really about?

WARDA SHAZADI MEIGHEN: The story is about what the government can be doing and what individuals need to do to make sure that they're diligent in terms of who they use. So in terms of the government, there are very specific actions that the government can take. They of course do have some public information about unlicensed consultants and these scams, but that education has to be prevalent, and it needs to target individuals, vulnerable immigrants where they are. So not necessarily on mediums like the CBC, which is fantastic for the general public. But individuals from these ethnic communities are often reading community newspapers in their language. And so I think the government ought to do outreach in those areas and be very mindful of the implications of the content on its website. So sometimes, government websites say you don't need counsel, you can do this on your own. And while that's technically of course accurate, what it often leads to is unpaid representatives using that information to stake out vulnerable people and say, look, we can help you. You don't need a licenced person to do this, so let us do this. And that's where the story begins. In terms of what individuals can do, they really have an onus to be diligent. The Canadian law is quite clear that for the most part, an individual is responsible for their own representative’s actions. And so whatever the representative does is imputed back to them. It's like an agency relationship. So it's up to the individual to be very diligent, to ask to see all documents that are being submitted on their behalf and to search the representatives that they are using on the registries of the governing bodies. And if they can't find them, don't use them because they will be held responsible for what their representative submits on their behalf.

MG: And we're seeing the impact of that now with these 700 students just kind of hanging in the balance.

WARDA SHAZADI MEIGHEN: Exactly.

MG: Warda, good to talk to you as ever. Thank you very much.

WARDA SHAZADI MEIGHEN: Thank you so much, Matt.

MG: Warda Shazadi Meighen is an immigration and refugee partner at Landings LLP and an adjunct professor of refugee law at the University of Toronto.

[music]

GOLF WIN

Guest: John Chidley-Hill

MG: This is The Current on CBC Radio and the CBC Listen app. My name is Matt Galloway.

SOUNDCLIP

MALE SPEAKER: Left the flagstick in with the maple leaf flag. Good pace. Are you serious? Oh my goodness! Glorious and free.

MG: Oh my goodness indeed. British Columbia golfer Nick Taylor won the RBC Canadian Open yesterday with a dandy of a putt, 72 feet. The tournament had come to be seen as a bit of a curse. He was the first Canadian man to win this tournament in 69 years.

SOUNDCLIP

NICK TAYLOR: The crowd's support was the most unbelievable thing I'll probably ever experience in my life. To kind of break that curse, if you want to call it, is… I'm pretty speechless. I don't think it's going to sink in for quite some time what happened today.

MG: It was a lovely moment. John Chidley-Hill is a sports reporter for the Canadian Press. He's with me in studio. Good morning.

JOHN CHIDLEY-HILL: Good morning.

MG: You were there.

JOHN CHIDLEY-HILL: I was.

MG: Describe how he won.

JOHN CHIDLEY-HILL: I mean, where to start? Nick Taylor got off to a poor start. In the first round, he shot a three over 75. Just squeaked into the weekend by making the cut on Friday. But then on Saturday, he came alive after a pep talk from his wife, I should add. He came alive, shot a course record 63 to 9 under par at Oakdale Golf and Country Club, putting him in the top 10. And then on Sunday, in the pouring rain, he sank back to back birdies to claim a tie for the lead. He had to wait in the clubhouse as England's Tommy Fleetwood finished out his round. And then they had a four hole playoff that lasted over an hour in the pouring rain. And as you said, and as your listeners heard in that clip, it all came down to a 72 foot eagle putt, literally the longest putt of Nick Taylor's career.

MG: He looked like he had no nerves. I watched a little bit of this and he looked cool, cool as you like.

JOHN CHIDLEY-HILL: Yeah, that's sort of Nick Taylor's reputation, calm, cool, collected. He joked afterwards that he's not, it's just an outward appearance.

MG: He did a pretty good job acting.

JOHN CHIDLEY-HILL: I was fooled.

MG: There was a really lovely scene, if you see this as he's finishing this up, Mike Weir, great Canadian golfer and some other Canadians who were there kind of under their umbrellas in the pouring rain watching him. What was going on there?

JOHN CHIDLEY-HILL: I mean, I think the most important thing for people to understand about golf in Canada is that golf in Canada creates, produces so many high level quality players. Canada really punches above its weight class.

MG: And women.

JOHN CHIDLEY-HILL: And women. Yeah, I'm including the women. Obviously, Brooke Henderson is the winningest golfer in Canadian history. But the most important thing for people to understand is that there is such a sense of community. Adam Hadwin was one of the golfers that was watching. They're both from Abbotsford, B.C., but they literally grew up playing against each other and with each other at the same club. Corey Conners was there watching. You mentioned Mike Weir. They refer to themselves as Team Canada. Obviously, golf is an individual sport, but every practice round on the PGA Tour, all the Canadians play together and practice together. They have such a sense of camaraderie and cohesiveness. The other, there was eight players from Canada who made the cut. I'm sure they all wanted to be there, but many of them had to go on to their next tournaments. So that's why there was the three that stuck around. And even then, Adam Hadwin had to rush to the airport before the ceremony where his good childhood friend Nick Taylor actually got the trophies.

MG: Which means a lot. I mean, again, the joke that there's some sort of curse around this for the men. It's been a long time since a man has won, a Canadian man has won the home tournament.

JOHN CHIDLEY-HILL: It's been since Pat Fletcher in 1954 at Vancouver's Point Great golf course. I can run that off so easily because we've had to talk about it for so long.

MG: It's like a trivia answer in a pub quiz or something like that.

JOHN CHIDLEY-HILL: It is. It is. But also, part of my job as a golf reporter is that unfortunately, every year, I've covered about 10 of these Canadian Opens. We had to ask the Canadian every year, is this going to be the year that Pat Fletcher… In golf circles, it's not the best term, but it was referred to as the ghost of Pat Fletcher, with all respect to the Fletcher family. But it weighed on them. And like afterwards, I spoke to Corey Conners and Adam Hadwin and Mike Weir and Graham Gillette, who is retired but now an analyst with TSN, and they were all so happy for Nick Taylor. They're also happy for each other because now they don't have to answer questions about when the curse is going to be lifted.

MG: If you're Nick Taylor, I mean, what does this do for your career? This is a thing in this country, right? He's now got his name written on not just the, you know, the trophy, but it's something else as well.

JOHN CHIDLEY-HILL: It's huge. I mean, it does so much for him. First of all, he has joined Brooke Henderson as the only Canadian player to win the junior national championship, the amateur national championship, and then the actual national championship. Brooke Henderson did it, of course, on the women's side, but it means it propels him to the top of the PGA standings. It puts him in good stead for a tour card.

MG: He gets a big cheque.

JOHN CHIDLEY-HILL: He gets a big check. He's already made more this year than in any other previous year. And the big thing that's important for everyone to understand is next year, Royal Montreal, the oldest golf club in North America is going to be hosting the Presidents Cup. And that is an international competition where the United States plays a team of golfers from everywhere but Europe. This past year in Charlotte, Corey Conners and Taylor Penrith, it was the first time that two Canadians were on the international team. Mike Weir is the captain in 2024 and all the Canadian players were on it. Nick Taylor just made a very strong case for himself yesterday to make that Presidents Cup.

MG: Just before I let you go, if there was another winner in this, it has to be the PGA. The last time you were here, you were talking last week about this tour, kind of explaining away how it ended up attached to the Saudi Arabia funded upstart rival league. Nobody wanted to talk about this. They said that, you know, this would never happen. Turned out that it happened. Everything is now forgiven and forgotten after a finish like this?

JOHN CHIDLEY-HILL: I don't know about forgiven and forgotten, but this is definitely some sugar to help the bitter medicine go down.

MG: Good to have you here again. Thank you very much.

JOHN CHIDLEY-HILL: Thanks, Matt.

MG: John Chidley-Hill is a sports reporter with the Canadian Press. Coming up after your regional update.

SOUNDCLIP

ERIC ASIMOV: We're in a phase where climate change is affecting but not destroying one's ability to make wine. A lot of these regions have gone past the tipping point. And rather than struggling to ripen the grapes, the challenge is to prevent over ripening.

MG: That's just one challenge. The wine industry needs to adapt to extreme temperatures, fires and floods or risk death on the vine. The future of Wine in a changing Climate coming up in 90 seconds. I'm Matt Galloway. This is The Current on CBC Radio. Stay with us.

[Music: Theme]

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WINE & CLIMATE CHANGE

Guests: Francesco Bordini, David Paterson, Eric Asimov

MG: Hello again. I'm Matt Galloway. You're listening to The Current. In early May, six months worth of torrential rain fell over a two-week period in the Italian region of Emilia-Romagna. And then in the following days, another six months worth of rain fell in just 36 hours. Rivers burst their banks sending catastrophic floods through towns, washing away orchards and vineyards and triggering landslides. Emilia Romagna is considered the heartland of Italy's fruit production. Francesco Bordini and his family own Villa Papiano. It's a small vineyard in the town of Modigliana. Francesco, hello.

FRANCESCO BORDINI: Hello to you.

MG: How would you describe the last few weeks in your life?

FRANCESCO BORDINI: So that was very complicated because the amount of rainfall was enormous. And so now there are two different problems in my region, because in the mountain where there are the beautiful vineyards of my region, there are an enormous amount of landslides. And to the other side in the valley, there are a lot of flooding of the river. And so it is so complicated living and working too.

MG: What was it like when that amount of rainfall? I said that there was six months of rain in two weeks and then another six months of rain in 36 hours. What was that like to be in the middle of that?

FRANCESCO BORDINI: Well, consider that before the first rain, the soil was completely dry because the winter was so dry. When it started raining and the raining get out, there was a very terrible condition because of the landslides were started. And with the second rainfall, they worse a lot. And so the condition become very dangerous in a little time.

MG: I've seen images of some of the flooding and roads washed out, people's homes flooded up to the second level, boats that are sailing down streets. Was it like that where you were living?

FRANCESCO BORDINI: Yes, exactly. Because consider that the biggest amount of water arrived from the mountain in this soil that wasn't able to absorb the water. It means that all the water go directly into the valley. And there was an enormous part of the town where there was one and a half or two metres of water. And so an enormous amount of water.

MG: What did all of that water mean in terms of your vineyard? What was destroyed in the flooding and in the landslides?

FRANCESCO BORDINI: Well, the vineyard who work in the mountain know the risk of the landslides. And so more or less, there is only the 10% of the vineyard which has problem. That is the biggest amount, 10%, but not an enormous amount. The big problem that now we have are the roads because the roads are completely destroyed by the flooding and by the landslides. And so it's so complicated working to go to the state to transfer the wine. Everything is very, very difficult. And so the first problem that we have is the mobility.

MG: I had heard that your staff have to walk like six kilometres to get into…

FRANCESCO BORDINI: Yes.

MG: Because the roads are all washed out, that's true that they're walking that far just to get into the vineyard.

FRANCESCO BORDINI: Exactly. Exactly. And you know that during the spring time, every day, you must go in the vineyard because it's the time that the shoots are growing very fast. Then you have to protect the vineyard from the mildew. And so it's very important to be in this state.

MG: How worried are you about what this is going to mean for this year's production of wine?

FRANCESCO BORDINI: Well, we are sure that the amount of grape will be reduced because some vineyard was damaged. And so the 10% of the vineyard are damaged. And so we think that the minimum reduction of production is 10%. And so now the most important thing is to protect the grape from the mildew. And so it depends how much will be the production, how much, how will be the quality. We don't know because if continuing raining, will be very complicated to save the production.

MG: How worried are you, these sorts of storms, the belief is will become more frequent because of climate change. And we know that this is impacting the production of all sorts of things around the world. How worried are you that your winemaking will be reshaped in some ways by climate change?

FRANCESCO BORDINI: In The Story of My Town, it was written that the last storm like that was happening in 1636. And so 450 years ago. Well, I don't think that for the 400 years, we haven't this kind of storm. And so I think that is very important to continuing to planning how preserve the vineyard from this condition. Another very important thing is to preserve the forest because a good managed forest preserve from the landslide and preserve the town from the flooding. And so I think that is very important. In Italy, the mountain, I mean, all of Europe, we start to understanding that we have to save the forest, we start to make good agriculture because it's the best system to preserve the city.

MG: I wish you the best of luck, and I hope that this sort of storm does not occur again in the near future. In the meantime, good luck with this year's harvest. Francesco, thank you very much.

FRANCESCO BORDINI: Thank you for your time and for your attention. Bye bye.

MG: Francesco Bordini is a winemaker in Italy. His family owns the Villa Papiano estate. Winemakers here in Canada are also experiencing the effects of climate change. In British Columbia's southern interior, winter temperatures have typically hovered just above zero degrees. But these past few winters, temperatures dropped as low as minus 30. The B.C. wine industry is predicting about a 50% loss in grape production this harvest. David Paterson is a winemaker and general manager at Tantalus Vineyards in the Okanagan. David, good morning to you.

DAVID PATERSON : Good morning.

MG: What have the past few winters been like at your vineyard?

DAVID PATERSON : I mean, since 2018, 2019 winter, we've consistently seen lower and lower temperatures. That particular winter where we first started to see some winter damage in the vineyard, we experienced about minus 23, which grapevines don't really like. And last winter, we hit about minus 26 and a half, minus 27.

MG: Tell me more about that. I mean, because there's been this huge swing in temperatures, right? You have a heat dome and then you have, as you said, minus 27. What does that do, that swing?

DAVID PATERSON : You know, grapevines are fairly hardy. But, you know, when you have an over 70 degree swing in temperature over a five-month period, that really puts the rhythm of the vine out. The heat dome is one thing. You know, vines can survive that. It's really the really cold temperatures that hurt the vines where the primary buds that hold the fruit that we then make wine out of get damaged. The tiny little growing tips inside the canes freeze. There is no life at all. The vines actually die because they get damage to all their connective tissue in the trunk and in the canes and they just can't handle it.

MG: So I said in the introduction that the B.C. wine industry has predicted about a 50% loss in grape production this harvest alone. What has that meant specifically for your vineyard?

DAVID PATERSON : Well, our vineyard, we are expecting about that. There are some vineyards that will produce nothing and there are some vineyards that seem a little less affected. They got very cold, but not quite as cold. So I think that number might even be conservative this year. It's still a little too early in the season to tell how many grapes the entire industry will produce, but there will be a mixture of only maybe 10 or 15% down in some areas, all the way down to absolutely nothing.

MG: What does that mean for the sustainability of a business?

DAVID PATERSON : Well, I mean, that's still the question, I suppose. I mean, at the moment, we're selling 2020, 2021 and 2022 vintages of wine. And so we're not seeing a shortage yet. 22 was a fairly large crop in certain areas, and that was able to buffer those that were further north and didn't have as much crop by being able to buy grapes. But what it's going to mean in this vintage is there are no grapes to buffer the people that have lost everything. And so what it will mean for my business is, you know, we have to use the larger 22 vintage that we made to try and bridge that gap. We won't see it impacts wine supply right away, but give it a couple of years and there's going to be quite a shortage of wine that could in turn impact tourism. If this continues, then that's going to be quite devastating for the industry as a whole.

MG: That's a lot of balls to be juggling in the air at once.

DAVID PATERSON : Yeah. I mean, I think that's what appeals to a lot of us in the industry. It's a very dynamic and interesting career. But when you keep facing these things that are out of your control, we are beholden to Mother Nature. We're farmers first. And you can't stick more grapes on the grapevine if you wanted to. So it's one of those things where we always remain optimistic and hopeful for rebounding. But if we keep seeing these extreme winters, it's going to cause the industry to really rethink what they're doing. Maybe we have to look at more winter hardy varieties. Pulling out the old vinifera and going back to some French hybrids is something that I'm hearing more and more of.

MG: We're talking now at a time when much of this country is blanketed in wildfire smoke. And I was at your vineyard a few years ago when there were wildfires all around through the interior of British Columbia and real concerns about the heat dome and the impacts of that. What impact does that have on the grapes?

DAVID PATERSON : Well, it really depends on the timing when it comes to wildfires and why wildfire smoke. Grapes don't really start to lay down the chemical compounds that would cause a problem from smoke until they change colour. Timing is a big thing and proximity to the fire as well. I kind of look at smoke like a bit of a nuclear bomb in a way where if you're right next to the fire, you're at ground zero. There's nothing you can do. So yeah, it really, really matters on timing and proximity to fire.

MG: There are wineries in the Okanagan that aren't selling, you know, wines from certain vintages because of smoke damaged crops from wildfires. In Northern California, there are wineries that have had to take what they've made and turn it into vodka, for example, because they couldn't sell the wine that was damaged by the smoke. Do you worry about that? I mean, people have looked at that as an existential threat in some ways to the industry if the wildfires continue. How concerned are you about that?

DAVID PATERSON : I mean, I think it's a big concern for the world as we see more fires in South Africa, more fires in Australia, more fires in the Pacific Northwest. I think it's a growing concern. At the moment, we've been really lucky, but, you know, of course, that is a concern moving forward. Oregon had a really, really bad season in 2020 where they were dealing with a lot of smoke tainted grapes.

MG: I guess just before I let you go, I mean, like every farmer, you are at the mercy of the natural conditions. Given the uncertainty in what's happening and the changing temperatures, how sustainable do you think it is to keep making wine in that region, in the Okanagan?

DAVID PATERSON : I mean, I think we're still a ways away from sort of being unsustainable. A lot of these weather events seem to be cyclical, and what we are all hoping for is that we've gone through a five-year cycle of getting these extreme winters. The Farmer's Almanac is telling us it should be quite a mild winter this year for the first time in five years. So we're all very hopeful that that happens. You know, I think we will see a few more bad seasons away from seeing such a huge impact that it becomes unsustainable.

MG: But that is something you think about, the long term.

DAVID PATERSON : Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, Tantalus has been at the forefront of sustainability for a while. And when you start thinking about sustainability, I look at the wine industry as a wonderful but luxury good. And in a way, you know, there's declining crops in every aspect because of these extreme weather events and lack of labour. To be able to grow food. It becomes something that goes into the back of every farmer's mind because we're right at the forefront of that, but maybe not something that every person that's not in those kinds of industries really thinks about. But we need more farmers, we need more immigration, in my opinion, to allow us to thrive as a country and have food security.

MG: I wish you the best of luck. The picture that you paint is a very dire one in some regards and a very immediate one when it comes to the bottom line. David, thank you very much.

DAVID PATERSON : Not a problem. Thanks so much.

MG: Take care. Bye bye.

DAVID PATERSON : Cheers.

MG: David Paterson is a winemaker and general manager at Tantalus Vineyards in British Columbia's Okanagan Valley. Eric Asimov is the New York Times wine critic. He's just returned from a reporting trip in Spain, and we've reached him back in New York City. Eric, good morning to you.

ERIC ASIMOV: Good morning.

MG: How is the weather in Spain, particularly when it comes to issues of winemaking?

ERIC ASIMOV: There was a lot of rain while I was there, but the growers that I spoke with were grateful for it because they've been in a drought cycle recently like a lot of Europe.

MG: Tell me more about that and how the weather and the changing weather has impacted the winemakers that you've been visiting.

ERIC ASIMOV: Grape growers are used to changing weather. I mean, that's why we have such interesting differences in vintages in wine, But they're also dependent on predictable patterns. And so you know when rain is going to occur in the season, when it's going to be dry and you can plan accordingly. But one of the effects of climate change has been to disrupt those patterns. So you'll have rain at different points in the year, prolonged periods of dryness and drought. And it makes it more difficult for farmers to know how to work, how to plan. And of course, it's difficult for the grapes.

MG: When did those winemakers begin to notice that things were different?

ERIC ASIMOV: I think that farmers began to notice in the 1990s. I mean, farmers and especially grape growers are on the tip of what's happening because wine especially is such a sensitive product. And that's what we cherish, the subtle nuances that vary from vintage to vintage and place to place. And in most wine regions, the first experience of climate change was beneficial. In the 90s, a lot of regions like the Mosel region in Germany, Champagne Barolo started to experience a series of great vintages. And mostly, this was because the struggle to ripen grapes was no longer so difficult.

MG: But then you have issues of drought, for example, issues of wildfire, and that certainly is not a benefit if you're trying to make those fine adjustments and land the perfect vintage.

ERIC ASIMOV: A lot of these regions have gone past the tipping point now. And rather than struggling to ripen the grapes, the challenge is to prevent over ripening. And you can see that in rising alcohol in some regions are changing styles.

MG: We heard David talk about the issue of smoke, and you and I are talking at a time when the smoke from wildfires is lingering here in New York City. And there was a lot of smoke in and over New York City over the last several days. How big of an issue is smoke taint in terms of the viability of wine? People have described, you know, the flavour of it as an ashtray sensation, which is not particularly a strong selling point, I would think, for a lot of wine.

ERIC ASIMOV: Not at all. As David said, the timing is critical. If the grapes, red grapes we're talking about have passed the point in the growing cycle where they change from green to red, at that point, smoke can affect the grapes. It can imbue the grapes with the effect or at least the skin. And the skins are crucial to making red wine. And the longer you soak the juice with the skins, the more the chemicals of the smoke are extracted into the wine. You saw in 2020, for example, far less red wine was possible to make in California, in Oregon, because there was so much smoke taint.

MG: There are winemakers who in the face of those sorts of threats are moving because of the weather. Take a listen to one of them, Felix Egerer. He’s a viticulturist who moved from the Okanagan to Vancouver Island's Cowichan Valley.

SOUNDCLIP

FELIX EGERER: The Cowichan Valley is a beneficiary of the shifting climate because it's just coming in to that window climatically where you can grow really high quality vinifera grapes and make fantastic wines out of it. We've seen it happen in the U.K. over the last, I'd say 16 years where all of a sudden, bigger wineries from France are buying lots of land there and planting lots of vineyards because the climate has shifted to a point where now, it's warm enough consistently that you can grow a crop and ripen it.

MG: Is that happening? I mean, you're not going to say that there's an upside to climate change, but that because of temperatures warming in some areas, there is the opportunity to produce wines in areas that were perhaps they may not have been possible to be produced before.

ERIC ASIMOV: Well, that's absolutely true. And England is the perfect example, but it's also happening in smaller ways. For example, in the northern hemisphere, you classically would want to have a vineyard on a slope facing south because that would ensure the greatest amount of sun on those grapes and it would help with the ripening process. But the problem now is not ripening, but over ripening. So you see growers moving to slopes facing north. This protects the vines from the intensity of the sunlight. But I would add one thing here. When you're talking about moving to new areas, you're talking about big companies or you're talking about people who are just starting, but rarely are you talking about small family estates, which have been the backbone of historic wine regions. They don't have the resources to pick up and move to a different place, particularly if they've been on land that their family has owned for centuries. And not only that, but when you think of the cultural implications, the traditions, the expressions of certain groups of people that go back centuries that may no longer be possible with climate change, it's not a matter of simply getting up and taking roots somewhere else. It's that something wonderful is being lost.

MG: And so if you aren't able to up and move somewhere else, what is it that those smaller winemakers are able to do, if anything, to adapt to the changing climate?

ERIC ASIMOV: Well, I think grape growers are some of the most adaptable people that I have ever met. And, you know, we're in a phase right now where climate change is affecting, but not destroying one's ability to make wine wherever they are. And there are all sorts of agricultural solutions that you can employ right now, whether it's just changing the way you're protecting the grapes, the canopy, the leaves that historically, you might try to get out of the way of the direct sunlight to expose the grapes to more heat and light, now you're arranging those leaves to protect the grapes from heat and light. I think you're going to see an increase in consciousness in soil health, which can really improve the health of grape vines and the quality of wines. And then there are high tech solutions, different sensors, highly calibrated ways of misting the vines to cool them in extreme heat events, and targeted irrigations that really manage water much better, which is crucial in times of drought. So there are steps that farmers can take, but the question is how long will those steps be effective and how quickly will governments and society work to mitigate the long term effects of climate change?

MG: And I guess just finally, before I let you go, for the people who would be listening saying we're facing real existential crisis when it comes to a changing climate, cities that are, you know, facing flooding, the wildfires that are under way right now, heat domes that are killing people because the heat is just so oppressive, why does protecting and figuring out how to make wine matter?

ERIC ASIMOV: Well, in the greater scheme of things, perhaps it doesn't. But if you are not taking the steps now to protect wine, which is on the leading edge of everything that is being affected by climate change, you're not protecting society. Wine is very much the canary in the coal mine here. And if you're going to ignore the early signs of climate change, it means that you're not acting fast enough and you're really threatening society as a whole. So, you know, if you are helping to protect wine, you're not only helping wine, you're helping the world. It's just a manifestation of what the world is doing to combat climate change.

MG: Eric, thank you very much for this.

ERIC ASIMOV: My pleasure. Thank you for having me.

MG: Eric Asimov is the wine critic for The New York Times. That's The Current for this Monday. Q is up next on CBC Radio One. Staying with the theme of wine, we're going to leave you today with a song by the great Emmylou Harris. This is Two More Bottles of Wine. I'm Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening to The Current and we'll talk to you tomorrow.

[Song: “Two More Bottles of Wine” by Emmylou Harris]

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Monday June 12, 2023 Episode Transcript

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